Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Writing Institute in the Bahamas Ready for Its Second Summer!

Greetings Readers!

Below is an announcement from the Bahamas Writers Summer Institute regarding our upcoming summer program; take a look and if you are interested in applying, please do email us at bahawsi@yahoo.com. We would love to hear from you!

HK

What are the stories you need to tell? Who are the characters that people your stories? Do you see visions you wish you could write down? Have you always wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know where to start?

At the Bahamas Writers Summer Institute, from July 12th through July 29th, you can explore what it means to be a writer with five published Bahamian writers. Through five different craft workshops, from screenplay writing with Travolta Cooper, to writing for the stage with Ian Strachan, to poetry with Marion Bethel and fiction with Lelawatee Manoo Rahming, as well as the writing of memoir with Helen Klonaris, you can delve into the writing genre of your choice and give yourself the gift of tools that will give your imagination wings strong enough to fly.

At BWSI we teach the craft of writing in conjunction with theories about how and why we write, from a Caribbean centered perspective. This year we will explore these theories and the literature they impact with Bahamian scholars Krista Walkes and Angelique V. Nixon. We’ll also discuss the ways writers can publish their work, bringing their stories and visions to a wider audience.

We believe in the enormous talent of Bahamians to imagine, to story, to write, and our goal is to bring together beginning and established writers each year, all the better to cultivate a flourishing Bahamian literary tradition.

In community with each other, beginning and established writers thrive. In community with each other they recognize the value of their words, and in the role of the writer as a co-creator of our communities and our world. As Bahamian writer Keith Russell has said, writers “imaginatively examine the world that is, and story a world that can be.”

Don’t miss the opportunity to attend the only program of its kind in the Bahamas!

Workshops take place from 4pm to 9pm Tuesdays through Fridays, between July 12th and July 29th, with public readings and discussions taking place on Monday and Saturday evenings for the duration of the program. The cost of the program is $400, which includes 36 hours of study in addition to faculty readings and discussions, a master class in fiction by renowned Jamaican writer Olive Senior, and all reading materials. Limited scholarships are available.

For more information or to receive an application, please write BWSI at bahawsi@yahoo.com, or call BWSI at (242) 325-0341.

The Gaulin Wife

Passed down from African Bahamian folklore comes the image of the 'Gaulin Wife' - a woman who turns into a large bird. Tales of the Gaulin Wife suggest that she is at once a shape shifter and a transformer of vision on her quest for social justice.

About Me

Writing Workshops

Re-Writing Avatar: Imagination, Authority and Social Change

In this month long creative writing workshop we’ll talk about the politics of imagining: Can imagination be colonized? Co-opted? What are the effects of colonization and racism on the collective imagination? We’ll look at James Cameron’s Avatar and discuss the neocolonial story being (re)told. What are the social implications of such a story? And, how might we re-write it? Re-imagine it?

After we’ve talked, we will also practice liberating our imaginations. And, we will write. What are the words we need to respell? What are the images we need to revision? What are the stories we need to retell? We’ll take chances. We’ll make a mess. We’ll find the new stories as we go.

Classes are 2-hour sessions each week for a month. Participants must sign up for the entire month.

Cost: $160-$200 sliding scale.

Dates of the workshop: March 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd, 2010

Location of the workshop: San Francisco/Oakland (Details to be announced)

Foreword Magazine Review of "Our Caribbean"

"While solidarity can literally save lives, however, and institutional acceptance is often the first step toward greater gains, it is on the front lines, within the separate communities to which the authors at once belong and do not belong, that Our Caribbean holds the greatest potential for influence. Its very existence is a challenge to the usual defensiveness of identity politics. For this reason—and because we all stand to benefit from a more inclusive cultural mindset—this book represents a profound achievement." -Courtney Arnold